How Faculty Impact Student Learning

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Metacognition is one of the most underly estimated topics when talking about teaching methods. Not only that, but it is one of the answers to help high school teachers and professors throughout the courses they teach. First off, what even is metacognition? Metacognition involves having awareness and understanding of our own thoughts. In other words, you are thinking about thinking. This important topic is substantial due to multiple reasonings that will be further discussed.

The use of metacognition can be useful for students trying to grasp an understanding of their course. In one of the articles I found, Metacognition – Cultivating Reflection to Help Students Become Self-Directed Learners, it talks about how “students need explicit training to practice reflection and metacognition”. This introduction tries to make it known that metacognition accomplishes the stimulation of the mind which aides in student’s success in their learning. Not letting students know what metacognition is and how it can help them in their course, will ultimately be a waste of time. When teachers and professors teach what metacognition is throughout the course that they are teaching, they are helping students to use the method for success. The same article also explains how reflecting is important for success. Reflecting is better when it is brought up and done in groups and socializing is involved. It is important to note that when practicing metacognition, communication is needed for everlasting results.

The second article I found called, Using Metacognition to Promote Learning, expressed the importance and key points involving metacognition in the classroom. The extensive article talks about what metacognition means because it can be confusing. It stands for “cognition about cognition” or “thinking about thinking”. It is important to know and let our students know the technique we are introducing so they can use it properly and correctly. Something’s that I believe were crucial in this article was how “students must not only hear explanations of metacognitive skills, but they must also observe them” (pg 1). This is an important matter since we cannot expect students to know the act of metacognition and how to use it without implementing it. This leads to students using it in real life settings and then after they reflect on what they have done.

Both informative articles include the importance of metacognition and what it means. They talk about how to make metacognition effective for students, we must tell them how to implement it as well as show them, so they have a model to observe. The first article was involved with reflecting as much as the topic of metacognition. It made it known that reflecting has better results when worked in groups so there is more of an open conversation and students can share and learn from others. The second article focused more on what metacognition is and how it can be used in a classroom setting. Both articles make it clear that metacognition is a very crucial point for success in student studies. When you think about your thinking, you are learning and obtaining more information that helps you really grasp whatever you are learning. This is a great tool for students as well as teachers and should be discussed more between staff and students.

The BS in Nursing program is a stand alone concept to most faculty. We need to start building on these concepts in freshman nursing student courses to introduce and scaffold basic concepts and help decrease “experiential” deviant knowledge base that becomes normalized in clinical settings.

Students can apply these principles right away. This does not have to be successful right away. If students simply breakdown study sessions into 1 hour sections with breaks every 15 minutes, they could experience less burnout. Furthermore, homeworks don’t have to be perfect the first time around. Mistakes are learning strategies, too.

Most students (and teachers) can identify with this even before reading it’s definition. We can draw similar scenarios whenever we absolutely needed to learn anything in very short order. We can literally assign keywords, mnemonic devices, or catch phrases to learn just about anything.

Focusing on students learning rather than teaching the material is fundamental in college. Students need to migrate from a mandatory education to a voluntary one. We can put them on the path to success, but they need to walk it.

Something I have started to experiment with is using some of these strategies in an organic manner in the classroom environment. This meant my teaching style had to be adjusted, but have found some success in making the process intuitive by breaking lectures into a series of micro lectures that are interlaced with short in-class exercises that build in complexity. The students are asked to work in teams allowing them to review the concepts right after they are introduced and teach each other.

I would say I was more surprised when mapping the objectives to the Study-Cycle. At first glance, I was skeptical of whether some of the steps were realistic, specifically the notions of preview and review. But once the digested the idea, I started come up with strategies to help them achieve these – for example giving the students a list of vocabulary words to review (not memorize) so that in the next lecture they have already been introduced to the terminology and can remain focused on the concepts.

How could the use of Bloom’s model with your students promote independent learning?

The key components of bloom’s taxonomy in helping students become independent learners are in the analysis and synthesis (evaluation) stages of the process. Once the students develop the skills to identify a set of rules and/or framework for solving a problem they are able to extract concepts and extrapolate based on those.

McGuire presents the Study Cycle, what is your reaction to it? Why?

At first, I was surprised at the recommendation to wait until after the first exam to introduce the study cycle to the student body. McGuire later explains that by giving the student something tangible that they can compare to gives them the ability to see the performance improvement first hand, making their application of the strategies more impactful.

How are we going to meet our goal of increasing retention 5-10% starting in the fall?

By not only using Blooms Taxonomy to scaffold my own teaching, but also sharing it with the students as a strategy they can apply. Specially, with first year students, it is of the essence to help them establish a study cycle that is efficient and focuses on processes and understanding concepts rather than being outcome centric.

In chapter 6, the importance of mindset is discussed. One kind of mindset includes a fixed mindset. These kind of people tend to be inconsiderate of others success, avoid challenges and criticism, as well as give up easily. The other kind of mindset is known as growth, has qualities opposite to a fixed one. People with growth mindset are very motivational and show constant effort. This is important to discover and understand, because many students can either benefit or suffer with such a mindset. It would be quite beneficial to have all students have a growth mindset, so there academics flourish to success.

I find very interesting how many American mothers and children believe that innate abilities are more powerful than putting in effort into their education. Innate abilities are found more in mathematical studies as well, which is interesting.

A growth mindset can definitely help increase our retention rates due to the simple fact that this type of mindset has room for growth and learning. Students with this mindset can most definitely conquer and stabilize any course.

Mcguire’s 10 metacognitive learning strategies are very resourceful and helpful for students to study. The two that I currently use include taking notes by hand in class, as well as doing homework without using solved examples as a guide. I feel that this is effective because students need to learn how to understand material without guidance of previous work they have done. If they use a guide that has problems that have already been solved, then they are just simply copying and not retaining any knowledge. Notes in class help too because when a student physically has to write notes, they learn more rather then giving them printed notes that they might never read. These strategies I use are both a study skill and a metacognitive skill because they enforce the student to learn as well as help obtain the knowledge they need in the course. To increase retention by 5-10% we can use at least five of these strategies. This way is one strategy is not effective then we have four other ones to use and see if it aids a student more.

While some of the objectives corresponded to Bloom’s Taxonomy, some did not and can probably be adapted to the Bloom.

CMCE2457

ABET Program Outcomes;

An understanding of the need for and an ability to engage in self-directed continuing professional development; (Criterion 3.h)

Corresponding Bloom Level – Applying

CMCE2421

ABET Program Outcomes;

Utilize measuring methods, and software that are appropriate for field and office processes

related to construction scheduling (Criterion 9.c)

Corresponding Bloom Level – Applying

How could the use of Bloom’s model with your students promote independent learning?

The use of Bloom’s model helps students identify how to produce the caliber of work needed to be successful in college. The four-step process truly delineates the difference between study versus learning. Application of this process breeds independent learning for our students as they now know that “learn mode” entails much more than memorization but rather a concerted effort into understanding a topic well enough to be able to put into their own words and applying to the extent that questions never seen before can be answered.

McGuire presents the Study Cycle, what is your reaction to it? Why?

I love the study cycle because it works!!! I have and will continue to share the study cycle with students. As explained by McGuire my reason for using and recommending the study cycle is because it results in learning goals as compared to performance goals being met.

How are we going to meet our goal of increasing retention 5-10% starting in the fall?

We can meet our Department’s goal by helping students accurately understand the learning process. Thereafter, they are now equipped to operate in the “learn mode – teach the material” as compared to the “study mode – make an A” they have practiced throughout their academic careers. Once the students apply this learning strategy, the improvement of disappointing or already good grades, will motivate, inspire and re-energize their desire to complete the program.

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The OpenLab at City Tech:A place to learn, work, and share

The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.

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The OpenLab at City Tech:A place to learn, work, and share

The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.